CULTURE V UNCERTAINTY: the way we see the world v. the Out of Sight ...but not that Far Out.

The second half of the 20^th Century has been described as the golden age of certainty and predictability* which had  ‘…abruptly drawn to a close and been replaced by a phase of great uncertainty.**

And while The Business of Pleasure serves a vital role in both anchoring our audiences against prospective slings and arrows and, simultaneously, offering them a safe harbour to (temporarily) escape to, it is, itself, just as vulnerable to a ‘fit of the jitters’ that can be triggered by national and global events with unpredictable impacts.

But how can we best limit those jitters?

RULE ONE:  ‘LEARN DON’T LINGER’

On Tuesday, the Gold price reached yet another all-time high in anticipation of the US Government Shutdown.*** 

And as the airwaves and cybersphere were subjected to a veritable drone attack of U-Words, one sober article**** added some much needed perspective:

..The three main measures (of measuring economic uncertainty) rely on textual analysis, financial markets, and business surveys. Text-based measures now show exceptionally high levels of uncertainty. Everything you read, from newspapers to country reports to official publications, seems to discuss uncertainty. Financial-market-based measures, meanwhile, show only moderate levels of uncertainty. And survey-based measures, which spiked during the pandemic, have largely flatlined.  …Our best guess is that uncertainty is not as high as indicated by the text measures, which may be distorted by the turmoil in US politics. But uncertainty is not as low as suggested by business surveys focusing on year-ahead sales. Many drivers of uncertainty are longer term or will not manifest in sales. …We see uncertainty as having risen above its long-term levels without reaching the peaks of the global financial crisis or the pandemic. As such, we think the 2025 surge in uncertainty will slow growth by reducing investment, hiring, and consumer spending on durable goods. This is likely to happen through 2025 and 2026 as the impact of uncertainty typically takes 6 to 18 months to slow growth. But the rise in uncertainty is not large enough to induce a global recession.’

...well at least it's not total meltdown.

RULE TWO:  ‘WALK THE TALK’

On the personal level, ‘culture’ is how we see the world, including our perspectives on Uncertainty as they (probably/hopefully) change through the key stage in our lives.

But when two or more of us are gathered together, either in pursuit of The Business of Pleasure or other less-fun (more certain?) areas of commercial enterprise, the psycho-social dynamics within the organisation can swerve the firm’s approach to Uncertainty.

And sometimes fatally.

For example, there’s an old (probably Roman) adage that ‘when things look tough, accountants cut,’ because that’s the only area they can control. 

Another (equally ancient) approach to The Great Unknowns is for the C-Suite to try and steady the ship through uncertain seas by appealing to the corporate culture; including nailing up scrolls in the company Forum proclaiming ‘Perfer et obdura ’ (Keep Calm And Carry On) alongside the latest version of the company’s mission statement and invitations to sign-up for (well-meaning) employee wellbeing programmes. 

A recent 18 month survey,***** centring on 164 US Business Leaders, questioned the extent to which leadership can influence corporate culture by asking:

How do senior leaders define and measure cultural impact?                                                            What disconnects emerge between leadership intent and team?                                                        What behaviours signal authenticity—and which quietly erode it?                                                    And what does it actually take to build a culture that lasts?

And guess what?

What we found was striking: culture doesn’t fail because it’s forgotten. It fails because it’s misunderstood. It’s treated as branding, not behaviour. As output, not infrastructure. And when that happens—even the most well-meaning efforts can erode the very trust they’re meant to build.

And later:

…A consistent pattern emerged: many leaders treat culture as a communication strategy. They believe it lives in messaging—in the articulation of purpose, the rollout of values, the tone of internal campaigns. But culture doesn’t shift because a new narrative is introduced. It shifts when systems change. When leaders take personal risks. When norms are not just declared but demonstrated.

RULE THREE:  ‘MEANING MEANZ BEANS’

A recently conducted review** showed that 79% of studies sampled found ‘that high levels of threat-related uncertainty were positively associated with mental health problems… (including) anxiety, distress, PTSD and stress.’

And with the long arm of AI reaching areas of The Business of Pleasure (and others) that no other technologies have touched since the introduction of the printing press, Prussian Ultramarine and Jack Daniels, it is no wonder that shares in the latter will remain a sure bet for some time to come.

The same review quotes a possible definition of uncertainty as ‘when details of situations are ambiguous, complex unpredictable, or probabilistic; when information is unavailable, or inconsistent; and when people feel insecure in their own state of knowledge in general.’

And it also lists a few of the strategies deployed to reduce the impact of Uncertainty:

‘…Accepting uncertainty involved learning to tolerate living with the unknown and accepting that some things are permanently impermanent and will, therefore, always be to some extent out of one’s control.  To some participants, this meant living more strongly in the present instead of worrying about the future, effectively adopting a ‘live for today’ attitude.  The ability to live in the present moment required ‘screening off’ or ‘setting aside’ notions of threat and being able to ‘normalize’ living with uncertainty as part of life. Practices used to achieve normalisation included continuation of routines, trying to minimise disruptions in daily life, strengthening one’s (religious) faith, taking care of one’s home, working, and making time for leisure. Participants’ acceptance of uncertainty went together with ‘sense-making’ and ‘reframing.’ Sense-making was mainly achieved through information management which involved selectively seeking out relevant information to foster a sense of control or personal mastery and ignoring unhelpful information to create a buffer between oneself and the uncontrollable, possibly negative outcomes of a situation.’

Now I realise that a lot of the above may appear totally alien to a lot of us in The Business of Pleasure.  Because our passionate engagement with our craft can (often/sometimes/on a good day DELETE AS APPLICABLE) filter out some of the negative impacts of Uncertainty experienced by others in less all-consuming sectors. 

But for those less fortunate than ourselves, I believe the chart****** below is a pretty fair checklist/compass for any individual or organisation wanting to deploy and strengthen their Culture (how they see the world) against the negative impacts of Uncertainty (the Out of Sight, but not that Far Out). Man.

DT 3 October, 2025

*the Cuban Missile Crisis, Korean War, Vietnam War, Six Day War, ERM, etc. notwithstanding.

**Introduction to Uncertainty and mental health: A qualitative scoping review, Hanna Kienzler, Alessandro Massaz, Rebecca Kuykendall, Nancy Tamimi, Weam Hammoudeh, Rita Giacaman, Qualitative Reasearch in Health, June 2025

***The previous Shutdown, 7 years previous, had been ‘bad for the US Bond Market, bad for the US Stock Market and bad for the US Dollar' BBCRadio 4 Today Programme, 1st October

****Uncertainty about Uncertainty Hites Ahir, Nicholas Bloom, Davide Furceri, International Monetary Fund Finance & Development Magazine, September 2025.

 ***** 'To Change Company Culture, Focus on Systems -Not Communication' Benjamin Laker, Chidiebere Ogbonnayay, Yasin Rofcanin, Tomasz Gorny and Marcello Mariani Harvard Business Review, August 2025

******Multidimensional scale of meaningful work: construction and validation Aleksandra Batuchina, Inga Iždonaité, Rron Lecaj Frontiers In Psychology, March, 2025

Aleksandra Batuchina, Inga Iždonaitė-Medžiūnienė,  Rron Lecaj Frontiers in Psychology, March, 2025